The UK's countercyclical capital buffer against downturns was lauded last week by US Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Randal Quarles and former Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn.The US hasn’t used this tool. Kohn, a member of the Bank of England’s financial policy committee, said the UK set its CCyB at 1 percent of a bank’s risk-weighted assets after considering stress test results. “Importantly, unlike in the US, we feed the stress test results into our consideration of the CCyB, which we have adjusted more actively than our US colleagues,” he said at a London conference.

Countries and crypto exchanges around the world must act now to implement new rules to stamp out money laundering via virtual currencies as criminals are increasingly exploiting legal loopholes, a senior US official said. The global intergovernmental body dedicated to fighting money laundering and terrorist financing issued binding guidance in June designed to stop the growing flow of dirty money through virtual assets such as Bitcoin.

Governments worldwide should supplement monetary policy with “timely and consistent” implementation of Basel III capital requirements and other measures to sustain economic growth, Bank of International Settlements chief Agustin Carstens said. “It’s time to ignite all policy engines,” he told an industry gathering in Switzerland. “Monetary policy cannot be expected to single-handedly sustain growth as it has over the past decade.”

HSBC has spotted the opportunities afforded by new technology to tackle financial crime, but sophisticated criminals are pushing in the opposite direction, said Colin Bell, the bank's group chief compliance officer and group head of its financial crime risk division. “We see innovation on the criminal side at a tremendous pace, and there is no question they are using technology against us, and they are doing it in a way that isn’t hampered or harnessed by privacy legislation, cross-border legislation and so on," he told an event in London. “It’s very sophisticated, very fast-moving and very innovative."

Refinitiv and IHS Markit, two leading providers of financial data, told the European Securities and Markets Authority in responses published today that the complex system would limit innovation and competition. Even potential users are unconvinced and have raised concerns with the EU watchdog.